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J. S. Bach at Christmas Johann Sebastian Bach is one of the cornerstones of Western classical music, a cultural giant whose influence spreads into areas such as jazz and rock and whose music is constantly plundered by a multitude of creative artists seeking inspiration for their own output. Connoisseurs of Bach’s music will immediately have…

Imagine giving your first professional concert when the rest of your peers are just starting at primary school or performing with the London Symphony Orchestra when your peers are contemplating their GCSE exams: this is the extraordinary talent of violinist Leia Zhu, who has just turned nineteen and wowed the audience in St Peter’s Church,…

One might be forgiven for thinking that two harpsichords playing together in a resonant acoustic would just produce a mass of sound, especially when realising the complex layers that comprise the music of J. S. Bach, but here in St Peter’s Church, Stockbridge it could not have been more different. Two beautiful double-manual instruments, one…

Review of VOCES8 at Stockbridge Music, 9 May 2025 VOCES8’s reputation for fabulous ensemble singing ensured a capacity, enthusiastic audience at St Peter’s Church, Stockbridge on 9 May and the concert given by the a capella ensemble sold out so quickly that a matinée had to be added to the evening performance. Owing to a…

The 2025 season of Stockbridge Music concerts burst into life on Friday 7 March, when a packed St Peter’s Church relished a programme of music played on an eighteenth-century square piano by David Owen Norris. The instrument and the music were chosen with an eye to the Jane Austen celebrations of this year. The instrument…

It is every concert promoter’s worst fear when an artist cancels a concert due to illness – finding replacements at short notice is never easy. Imagine then the problem when the replacement artist also has to cancel. Thus on Friday night the audience arrived to hear, not to the expected song recital, but a complete…

Stockbridge Music continues to enrich our musical lives. The Craig Ogden Ensemble attracted an audience from as far away as Wales for their concert in May. In the first half, David Juritz (violin), Craig Ogden (guitar) and Adrian Bradbury (cello) played a succession of delightful, short baroque pieces from composers across Europe during the 17th…

Stockbridge Music has unearthed a young treasure in the form of the Morassi Quartet. Average age 23, these four talented artists played as one, with an emotional maturity belying their years. We were taken on a tour of the string quartet’s development over three centuries. The concert opened with Haydn’s “fifths” quartet from the 18th…